Today's notes:

Context:

Key Concepts:

What is God's righteousness observed doing?:

Joining together male and female as one flesh.

What does this tell us about God's righteousness?:

The root of the law is not how best to legally separate, it is how best to stay together in Christ. Breaking with that is not an advisable course, it is a hardness of the heart. God intends to soften the hardness because much of the hardness is as much a hardness toward HIM as anything between each other.

The issue with adultery is covenant vows. Two have made vows before God that they now intend not to keep. Whether to remarry or not, each member current and future is in a perpetual state of broken vow whether of the original two or not or of a broken covenant themselves. Thus we have a complex compound state of broken covenant vow and hardness of heart.

How is man reacting?:

Looking for legal ways to break with the covenant.

Looking for ways of placing Jesus at odds with public sentiment.

Notes:

The thought of hardness is typically considered as a hardness of the man toward wife else wife toward man or each other. Actually it is the hardness toward God, hardness toward HIS institution, toward HIS joining, toward the condition of the heart HE would prescribe to make the union blessed beyond human produce. If a man or woman does not want any of that then of course they are going to find any way to get out of it; even blame HIM on the way out of it as well.

There is much division publicly on this topic. By bringing Jesus to answer this the various sides of this are going to see the answer and therefore Jesus differently. Concensus and support are naturally weakend. It worked then, it works that way now. Jesus however is not afraid to deliver the answer because the answer is not just about marriage or divorce, it is about their relationship to God.

The majority of these people are deeply rooted in the Law. The percept of the law should be enough to soften the heart one would think. The law without the direct person of Christ however seems to have the opposite effect as evidenced by the lawyers surrounding Him here. Focus becomes on the letter confused and assorted as it has become instead of the spirit originally intended.

Key Messages:

What does this say about our present condition?

Most marriages today begin with a hardened heart long before they go in front of a alter. The wedding is merely a ceremony, very little seriousness given to the actual vow. The heart only further hardens from there.

Divorces pretend to be about what is best for the children, what is best for one's sanity etc... What about what is best for your vow to God? Most would respond that God does not matter or that God only wants me to be happy. Very few consider that God intends for their happiness to be set in a vow, not as punishment, but for safe ground for the heart by HIS many means to soften.